Problematizing excessive online gaming is an emerging problem which is related to depression, loneliness, fatigue as well as low self-esteem. For its negative consequences, the workgroup of American Psychiatric Association recommended including Internet gaming disorder (IGD) in the research appendix of the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, as a condition requiring further study. Social interaction anxiety is an important reason for internet use. Although many studies have focused on the direct association between social interaction anxiety and excessive internet use, still little is known about the underlying mediating mechanism (i.e. how social interaction anxiety leads to problematizing excessive internet use) and moderating mechanism (i.e. for whom the influence would be stronger). Prior studies have pointed out that social anxious individuals have a tendency to interpret social situations in a threatening way. Self-compensation motivation is found to be stronger when one felt threatened. Furthermore, internet use, such as playing online game, is a desirable way for social anxious individual for self-compensation since they can keep anonymous when interacting with others, which helps avoid anxiety that usually evoked during face-to-face interaction. Hence, their self-compensation motivation with online gaming would be stronger. Meanwhile, self-compensation is closely related to problematizing excessive online gaming for undergraduates as proved in previous empirical studies. Therefore, this study hypothesized that self-compensation motivation could mediate the link between social interaction anxiety and problematizing excessive online gaming. In addition, the adverse impact of social interaction anxiety is stronger for the extroverted since they have stronger need for social interaction comparing with their introverted counterparts. Therefore, this study further hypothesized that extroversion could moderate the relationship between social interaction anxiety and self-compensation motivation. To test the hypotheses, the present study constructed a moderated mediation model to examine the effect of social interaction anxiety on problematizing excessive online gaming for undergraduates. Specifically, the present study examined the mediating role of self-compensation motivation in the relation between social interaction anxiety and problematizing excessive online gaming, and tested whether the indirect effect was moderated by extroversion.

A sample of 689 undergraduates completed a battery of self-report questionnaires measuring their social interaction anxiety, problematizing excessive online gaming, self-compensation motivation and extroversion. All the measures showed good reliability in this study. Data were analyzed by SPSS 23.0 and the SPSS macro PROCESS.

The results were as follows: (1) Social interaction anxiety was positively correlated with self-compensation motivation and problematizing excessive online gaming; Self-compensation motivation was also positively correlated with problematizing excessive online gaming; Extroversion was negatively correlated with social interaction anxiety. (2) Social interaction anxiety significantly exerted direct effect on problematizing excessive online gaming; and there was indirect effect on problematizing excessive online gaming through the mediation of self-compensation motivation as well. (3) Extroversion moderated the first path of the mediated effect of self-compensation motivation. For undergraduate students higher in extroversion, with the increase of social interaction anxiety, their self-compensation motivation had a very obviously ascending trend (bsimple=.36, t=6.01, p<.001); For undergraduate students lower in extroversion, with the increase of social interaction anxiety, their self-compensation motivation did not have a significantly ascending trend (bsimple=.09, t=1.88, p=.06). (4) The indirect effect of self-compensation motivation was moderated by extroversion, and the effect was significant for extrovert undergraduates while insignificant for introvert students.

The study highlights the mediating role of self-compensation motivation and the moderating role of extroversion in the effect of social interaction anxiety on problematizing excessive online gaming. It contributes to a better understanding of the effects as well as its paths and conditions of social interaction anxiety on problematizing excessive online gaming of undergraduates. Moreover, it also provides some constructive suggestions for alleviating excessive online gaming problems of undergraduates higher in social interaction anxiety.